Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Counting pennies

My mother's birthday present from my father has always been a change jar. Throughout the year, he'd dump all of his spare change in a hidden canister, and we'd all count it up on her birthday. The four of us would make bets as to how much was in the jar based on the weight, not on sight.

A year before our wedding, Phil and I decided to start a minimoon jar. While we have other saving goals in mind, this jar is dedicated to fun and play. We couldn't afford to go on a full-out honeymoon, so we figured we'd amass enough money for a dinner out. We pulled in 300$, which I thought was great, as I rarely use cash. So, we had that killer dinner at Alan Wong's that I talked about here.

Obviously it was amazing, because I'm still talking about it.

So, we've been back into savings mode for the last two years. And the jar was FULL.

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Quick! Off the top of your head, how much change does a large can of coffee hold?

Why, it's this much!

I guessed that we had 680$, and Phil guessed that we had 760$.

Look at those nice, neat little piles! We calculated our total starting with the pennies and progressing upward in denomination. What started with 4.65$ in pennies exploded when we hit 300$ worth of toonies.

So, in the end, we were both wrong. Including the leftover money and some Christmas money from Phil's parents, we clocked in at more than 1000$! Holy moly, do I ever love those loonies and toonies!

Now the question is: how many amazing restaurants on Maui and Kauai can I eat at with this? Or do we spend it on some gorgeous koa wood? Or do we save it and put it towards our next big vacation?